Left 4 Dead: Manhunt
by Jalos
Summary: Four new survivors stranded in southeast America, fighting their way to New Orleans -- and revenge. CEDA has failed them and everything they knew, and Jacob -- the leader of their group -- has sworn vengeance for the countless dead.
1. Chapter 1

Mist drifted in off the ocean like a ghostly curtain, slithering across the sand and reeds, refracting the moonlight into a thousand silver shreds. The world was as silent and still as a grave, the damp mist pressing in, muffling sound and, combined with the oppressive nighttime heat, forming a hot, cloying soup of ghostly, wavering light.

This soup, however, was abruptly torn asunder as headlights slashed through it, and the strident roar of a humvee engine burst the silence like a soap bubble. Said humvee followed soon after, bouncing and jostling along the rolling sands. Coarse grains flew from its wheels, creating a swirling cloud of choking sand that hung in the air for several seconds as the vehicle past by.

The humvee was originally tan, but the entire front half was now red from blood splatter, some of which had even decorated the windshield with scattered red streaks. The front fender and grille were dented and twisted from numerous collisions, and one of the headlights was cracked but still functional. Crude reinforcements had been added to the vehicle in the form of metal plates riveted to its front and sides, and various other pieces of scrap bolted on wherever they were needed.

Riding in the humvee were four men, all wearing patchwork suits of makeshift armor, with everything from hockey pads to Kevlar to bits and pieces of scrap metal hung, sewn or tied onto their person somewhere. Guns ranging from AK-47 assault rifles to pump-action and fully automatic shotguns were slung over shoulders, stacked in empty spaces in the humvee, stuffed in holsters and hung on backs. All four men looked not in the prime of health; bruised, scratched, and covered from head to foot in blood splatter and a sticky green substance that reeked of dead things and bile, they all bore grim expressions, except for a tall man lounging in the back seat, casually fondling a bloodstained fire axe with a heavily nicked blade. He smiled to himself as he ran his fingers over the red blade, feeling the layers of sticky, dried blood that practically coated the weapon.

Suddenly, the man driving the jeep let out a cry of alarm, and yanked hard on the steering wheel as a humanoid shape appeared from the fog in front of them. The brake was applied with great force, and four guns instantly snapped up to firing position, their barrels trained on the mysterious shape. "Don't shoot!" came the panicked response to this action, and the newcomer stumbled closer. As it came closer, it was revealed to be a woman, maybe in her late twenties, with long, matted brown hair. "I'm… I'm human! Please, don't shoot!" The guns were hesitantly lowered, but the man with the axe kept his hand resting on the butt of the pistol holstered at his hip. "Thank God… thank God…" the unfamiliar woman repeated over and over, sinking to her knees in the sand. The man with the axe gave her a hard stare, and his eyes tracked down to the sand at her knees, where blood was starting to pool. His eyes widened, and he said, barely more than a whisper, "George?" "I see it, Jacob," the driver replied in the same hushed tone. The man with the axe – apparently named Jacob – hopped down out of the humvee, his combat boots sinking into the loose sand as he landed. Sheathing his axe and walking over to the woman, he put a hand under her chin in an almost-caress, and lifted her face to the limited light of the moon. She cried out at the touch, and Jacob closely inspected her, taking in the slight grayish tint to her skin, the red veins encroaching on her eyes, the pallid blue color of the veins that stood out like ropes on her face and neck, then released his hold and let her head drop. Reaching down and undoing the snap on his holster with his forefinger, the man said "Yep, she's got it." "Got… got what?" the woman said in a trembling voice, looking up at Jacob with wide, terrified eyes. Jacob said nothing, merely wrapped his fingers around the rubber grip of the Colt .45 handgun resting at his hip, and slid the 6" of polished steel lethality out of its resting place. Ignoring the woman's feeble protests – growing feebler by the minute – he reached out and placed the cold steel muzzle of the weapon between her eyes. Saying simply "Goodybe," Jacob squeezed the trigger. With a report that boomed in the foggy silence, the bullet sprayed a fountain of blood and brains out the back of the woman's head, and she fell backwards to lie in a heap on the bloodstained sand. Holstering the smoking weapon, Jacob climbed back into the growling humvee, which roared to life again and lurched forward, bouncing and jostling along the beach until it disappeared into the mists.

By sunrise, as the rays of light from the ball of fire just beginning to appear over the horizon burned away the mists, the humvee had bounced and jostled its way inland, into the ruins of an evacuation center. Barbed-wire-topped fences and concrete barriers blocked off half the road, and beyond them was a mess of tents and tables scattered about like children's toys hastily discarded, some lying on their sides, some smeared with blood. A CEDA banner had formerly hung on the perimeter fence, but someone had spray-painted "CEDA SUCKS" over the text in red. The group shut the humvee off outside the evac center to avoid attracting unwanted attention, and made their way in on foot, after appropriately arming themselves with the guns from their vehicle. "Great," George said, staring around down the barrel of his M1A4 tactical shotgun. "Fourth abandoned evac center in a week. This ain't a good sign for the future of this country." One of the other men, a rather short, middle-aged man with an untidy mop of tan hair just starting to go bald across the scalp, spat out a wad of the chewing gum that seemed to follow him everywhere, and said "Country, my ass. This ain't a country any more." "Ron," Jacob said, giving his axe a nervous twirl, "I'm going to have to agree with you there."

The group spent the next ten minutes or so looting the camp for anything of use they could find. They found a handgun with a few clips, some scrap metal, and a machete pinning a zombie's corpse to the ground. The blade had been dulled by being rammed into the ground, but nothing a little application of a sharpening stone wouldn't fix. They were about to pull out with their loot when something caught Jacob's eye. Saying "Cover me," he hopped down from the jeep and, axe in hand, made his way cautiously over to one of the tents. The interior was an abattoir, strewn with corpses – some of them burnt – and coated with blood. And then Jacob saw it. One of the corpses was a young girl, maybe eight or nine years old. In her hand, she clutched a note, held so fiercely that the paper was crumpling. Carefully prying the cold, clammy fingers off of the letter and extracting it, Jacob flattened it out on his knee, and read.

_Emily,_

_I am safe, as is your father. We were taken away last night by helicopter, and we're now safely in New Orleans. We were told that another helicopter would be coming for you, so just hold on until it gets there, okay? I'm so sorry for leaving you. Be strong for mommy!_

As Jacob read the final sentence, he felt a cold rage start to boil inside of him. CEDA had failed them. All of them. They had failed this little girl. They had failed her mother. They had failed Rob, and George, and Jack – the fourth member of their group – and himself. In the name of the countless, nameless dead, in the name of those who had survived and were trapped in this living hell, he would make CEDA pay for what had happened. If it was the last thing he did on this earth, if he spent his final breath in accomplishing it, he would find whoever was responsible for this nightmare, and he would put a bullet between his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2: From the Skies

The hotel foyer was almost peaceful – if you consider the stillness of the grave to be peaceful. Mangled corpses were strewn about, blown to pieces from explosives and shredded from high-caliber rounds. Infected corpses were mixed with bodies of 'regular' humans, some locked together in frozen conflict, others laying alone, bloody and punched full of holes. The sharp coppery tang of blood was mixed with the sickly sweet stench of decay to form a cloying odor that hung about the place like an oppressive cloud, and the only sounds came from the occasional tormented howl of an infected from the surrounding city, and the staccato bursts of gunfire that, muffled by long distances, sounded more like a string of firecrackers than the lethal reports of guns.

Jacob looked upon this scene with a grim expression, axe resting on his shoulder. "So much for the Atlantic Hotel Evac Center," he said, turning away and experimentally twirling the axe. The bloodstained metal whistled as it spun, and he climbed back into the humvee, settling himself into the leather seat and laying the axe across his lap. The humvee growled to life again, and started to pull forward into the street when a colossal shape dropped out of the sky like a thunderbolt, slamming into the pavement in front of them and throwing up a shockwave that rocked the humvee up onto its back wheels. "_Shit!_" Jacob yelled, leaping from the jeep and skidding painfully to a halt on the sidewalk, axe in hands. Rob followed suit, jamming a magazine of high-explosive rounds into his M16 assault rifle as he landed. George remained in the driver's seat, furiously trying to get the vehicle back under his control. Jack stood up in the back seat, training his sniper rifle on whatever the hell it was that had attacked them. Then, as the dust settled, all of their jaws fell slack simultaneously as the object was revealed to be a police car, its front end accordioned by its impact with the ground.

A bellow that rattled the teeth of everyone present followed, and a second object dropped from this sky, this time landing on the front end of the humvee and crumpling the hood like tissue paper. Cursing, George scrambled backwards away from it, but was a fraction of a second too slow. An arm like a tree trunk latched onto his leg, and he was suddenly in the air, soaring across the street to slam into the concrete wall of a building and slide down to lie limply on the sidewalk. Jack hastily abandoned the vehicle, and everyone started firing at once. Explosive rounds from Rob's roaring assault rifle peppered the thing's front and side, raking a bloody furrow in its insanely swollen muscles. Sniper rounds punched holes in its left arm, raised as a shield to protect its face. Jacob leapt onto the thing's back, clinging on for dear life as the massive creature tried to shake him off. Hauling himself into a standing position, Jacob brought his axe whistling down with practiced ease, embedding the weapon in the foul beast's undersized skull. With a roar that trailed off into almost a sigh, the huge zombie collapsed, and Jacob was flung off to slide along the road.

Jacob stood up painfully after a few moments, stretching his aching muscles. Suddenly remembering their casualty, he ran over to where George lay prone, motionless and speechless. Pressing his ear to the other man's chest, he heard a heartbeat – faint, but steady – and picked George up in a fireman's carry, hunching and gritting his teeth under the weight of the big man. Walking up to the humvee, Jacob deposited his living cargo inside it temporarily before walking around to check the engine. Lifting the hood, he found everything inside to be crushed to powder, and let out a virulent curse, slamming the hood shut. "Well, what now?" Jack said, sliding a new clip into his rifle. "First," Jacob said, and walked over to the prone form of the huge zombie. "I'm getting my axe back."

As the sun rose the following morning, the radiant ball of fire sliding up above the buildings and stabbing beams of fiery light down into the streets below, the group was making its way up the twenty-eighth flight of stairs in St. Mark's hostipal. It bore a sign out front denoting it as an evacuation center, and they had seen a surprising lack of corpses so far, so they'd decided to check it out. George was a little unsteady on his feet, and Jacob helped him along with an arm about his shoulder as they ascended. Rob was panting and bent over with exertion, and as they climbed, he muttered to himself "Why the hell… couldn't any goddamn elevators be working?"

Jacob reached the top first, stopping to catch his breath before a metal door with 'ROOF ACCESS' stamped in red on the front in large, bold letters. Bending almost double and panting from exertion, he reached up to feel the reassuring presence of the axe sheathed on his back, almost like one would take comfort from the presence of an old friend. Looking back to make sure all of his friends were with him, he raised a hand and knocked on the door, just in case anyone living was on the other side. There was no response, so after about a minute he reached down and tried the handle. It wouldn't budge. "Ah, hell," he said, and, after a moment's thought, slammed a booted foot into the uncooperative portal.

The lock on the door snapped in half without much effort – the thing must have been rusty from lack of use – and the door swung outwards and banged against the wall with a resounding crash. Reaching down to his hips, Jacob undid the clasps on his twin holsters as he stepped through the door, drawing his two .45 caliber Colts and raking the rooftop with his eyes.

His questing eyes met a wall of sandbags, chain-link and barbed wire looming up before them like the last monuments of a forgotten age, an age when the biggest threat to your life was a gun, not a horde of bloodthirsty abominations. Behind that seemingly impregnable barrier was a table, and on the table sat a radio. It gleamed in the sunlight, twinkling and taunting them with its presence, so close yet just out of reach. An all-too-familiar roar started building on the edges of Jacob's hearing as he started running for the radio, and time slowed to a crawl as he looked up to see the sleek, angular shapes sliding down out of the sky like the angels of death. And he immediately knew what they were, and what they were doing. He didn't need to see the objects, barely more than dots at this range, falling from their steel bellies. He didn't need to hear the lethal whistle as those very objects hurtled to the ground. He knew a US military bomber when he saw one. He'd served around them for long enough. Whirling, he started to yell a warning, but all that got out of his mouth was "Get off the ro-..." before the world was gone, engulfed by white fire and indescribable noise.

A voice called to him from the abyss. "Jacob!"

_He was in a jeep, rolling and jostling down the road, his M60 held tightly in his arms. Sunlight filtered in through the armored window, and he felt the reassuring presence of his squad at his side. Outside the jeep, he could hear screams and a gurgling howl, and suddenly the jeep was knocked on its side as-…_

The voice came again. "Jacob!"

_He was sitting in a briefing room, watching a sergeant pace up and down in front of him. The sergeant was talking. "What we are dealing with here is like nothing anyone's ever seen. The government is calling it the Green Flu. All you need to know is that the Infected are not people anymore. They are your enemy. We've already lost Washington, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia. The rest of the northeast US will soon follow. There have been reports of infection as far away as texas and montana. Now I want to make one thing clear. It is not your job to protect people. It is your job to make sure the goddamn infection doesn't spread-..."_

"Jacob!"

_He was kneeling behind a sandbag wall with his squad, firing into a crowd of things that were once people rushing toward them. It was late at night, and the only illumination came from the huge floodlights positioned behind the soldiers. His last magazine ran dry, and Jacob cast aside the weapon, reaching for the only other thing that came to hand; a fire axe. He had no idea how an axe had gotten into the middle of the road, and right now, he didn't give a shit. Raising the axe, he prepared to-..._

"Jacob! Goddammit, Jacob, wake up!" Someone was shaking him, snapping him out of his reverie. The sound was muffled and dulled, as if Jacob were underwater. The light was painfully bright, an assault on Jacob's eyes. He blinked several times, straining to make out the blurry outline before him. His mind churned furiously, seeking to match a name to the fuzzy, unfocused blur of a face that stared down at him. Rob. Yes, that was it. Rob. Jacob opened his mouth, trying to form the word "Rob." He didn't know if he succeeded, because he didn't hear what he said over the pounding in his skull. "Jacob! Get your sorry ass up now!" He was shaken one more time, and as if a switch was thrown, the world snapped into focus. He could hear again, and everything had returned to its earlier crispness and clearness. "What? What!?" Jacob said, scrambling into a sitting position. "The building's collapsing! We gotta get the hell outta here!"


	3. Chapter 3: Last Man Standing

As Jacob stumbled down the last few steps, concrete and metal raining down around him as the building came crashing down upon itself, he felt his legs beginning to give out beneath him. The shock of the explosion combined with the exertion of climbing up (and then down) thirty flights of stairs had sapped him of any strength he possessed. _No… goddamn it, no… it can't end like this!_ Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to take another step. And another. With a conscious effort of will, he raised his arm to open the door that looked out over the street, and a broken piece of I-beam slammed into the ground near him, embedding itself in the floor. _Shitshitshitshit!_ Jacob's mind frantically hammered at the cage of exhaustion and numbness that had settled over his body, and, painfully slowly, he pushed open the door and half-collapsed out of it, staggering onto the sidewalk. _God, I hope there aren't any infected around._ His head was still ringing from the blast, and it felt like the explosion had turned every muscle in his body to rubber. He was lucky to be alive. Turning, he saw Rob stumbling down the stairs behind him, his bulk having slowed him down. "Jaco-…" Rob, however, never got to finish the word, as the entire staircase came crashing down on top of him with a deafening clatter and crash, throwing up a cloud of concrete dust.

The grim finality of the situation took a while to settle in. Jacob stood there, on the sidewalk, watching in stunned silence as the building came crashing down, piece by piece. Each impact of a chunk of wall or floor slamming into the ground seemed to shake him, as if he was a leaf blowing in the wind, barely hanging on to his mother tree. After the dust had settled, and St. Mark's hospital was nothing more than a slowly shifting pile of concrete and rebar, Jacob's brain finally kicked back in. George was dead. Rob was dead. Jack was dead. The three men that he'd known for the past three weeks, loved like brothers, were gone forever. Swallowed up by the living hell that this city had become. _BOOM… BOOM…_ the ground shook as explosions ripped apart the city, the planes moving farther and farther away, letting loose their lethal payload onto the raging turmoil below. The worst of the first bomb's shock was fading, and Jacob was relieved to find himself (mostly) in control of his body again. There was still an aching grief in the pit of his stomach that he stubbornly shoved down, vowing to deal with later, but it was a whole lot better than a few moments ago. Drawing his axe as _they_ started to gather, drawn by the noise of the collapsing building, he gritted his teeth and surveyed his opposition. They were coming from everywhere, but fortunately hadn't seen him yet. They were still just idly curious, attracted by a new sound, and hadn't identified him as prey yet. But that was about to change.

As soon as the first one noticed him, the reaction of the rest was a foregone conclusion. The feral howl let out by the blood-crazed zombie as it sighted Jacob immediately attracted the attention of the others, and they surged forward like a pack of wolves. Only it wasn't just a pack. There were easily a hundred zombies in the street, and more were coming from houses and alleys, forming a tide of unloving flesh and blood that swept towards Jacob like a flood. His eyes darted around, but no exit presented itself, no route of escape except through the horde. "Well shit," he said, hefting his axe. "Guess it's just you and me left, old girl. Let's give these undead assholes something to remember us by, shall we?"

The first zombie to reach him was met with bloodstained steel, the axe biting deep into its forehead and felling it instantly. Planting his boot on the corpse and ripping his axe out of its face – triggering a jet of fetid blood as the foul thing slumped backwards – Jacob whirled it through the air to decapitate a second zombie, its severed head hanging in the air insanely for a moment, an expression of inexpressible hunger and rage sculpted forever onto its features. The hissing metal reaped a grim toll among his attackers, slicing open any of the zombies foolish enough to come within reach. However, the sheer numbers of attacking undead soon wore down Jacob's defense, and he felt cold, lifeless arms lock themselves around him from behind. The zombie's stinking breath was hot on his neck, and the others closed in during the temporary distraction. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the zombie by the scruff of its neck like a cat, and with strength born of desperation, hauled it off of his back, hurling it into the crowd in front of him. However, his respite was brief before one slammed into him from the front in a full-body tackle, knocking him to the ground and straining for his throat. From his prone position, Jacob slugged the zombie across the face as hard as he could, but it didn't seem to notice and its head snapped back almost instantly, seemingly unconscious of its broken jaw hanging at an odd angle. Keeping the zombie at bay with his fire axe as the others closed in, Jacob reached behind him and unsheathed the pump-action shotgun slung on his back. Planting the barrel under the flailing zombie's chin, he squeezed the trigger, blasting the now-headless corpse backwards off of him with the force of the shot.

Leaping to his feet, Jacob held one weapon in each hand, racking the slide of the shotgun on his leg. Bracing it against his torso, he blew another zombie to pieces, before lopping the head off one that got a little too close. _How much longer can I keep this up?_ He thought, desperately looking around for any help. He was starting to tire, and hadn't even killed nearly half of the horde yet. _Shit! This looks like it for me._ Growling oaths, he did something that none of the infected would have expected if they had the mental capacity to expect anything; charged. Dropping the shotgun, he held his axe two-handed and whirled it like a Viking berserker, cleaving a bloody path through the horde. Lifeless hands grasped at his coat, and he shrugged it off, running on and leaving the infected to play with their new chew toy. Vaulting over a parked car, he sprinted down the street, his undershirt soaked with sweat, breathing hard. _God __**damn**__ that was close!_ Turning to watch as the flood of zombies poured down the road after him, he cursed under his breath. He wasn't out of this yet.

After running for an entire city block, Jacob's lungs burned like fire, his legs felt about to give out at any minute, and he was almost to the point of giving up when he saw a sign dangling from a nearby store that renewed his hope; _Bubba's Gun Emporium_, it proclaimed in faded red letters. Swerving to the side, he smashed the boarded-up window with one stroke from his axe, and leaped through. Diving behind the counter, he snatched up twin UMP sub-machine guns. Desperately ramming magazines into the stocky weapons, he stood up from behind the counter just as the horde reached the store. Bracing the twin SMGs against his shoulders, he squeezed the triggers and let out a roar of defiance, bellowing to the night as the swarm outside was torn apart by the hail of bullets. The guns clicked dry just as the last zombie fell in a bloody heap, and Jacob slumped against the wall behind him, sliding down it to sit panting, guns falling from his limp fingers. _Hot damn, does a nap sound good right about now…_

"Wake up." The voice, cold and hard as ice, punctured the abyss like a knife. Jacob blinked drowsily up at the figure standing over him, but all he could see silhouetted against the window was the outline of a long trenchcoat and a wide-brimmed hat. "Get up. Now. We're leaving," the figure said, and Jacob caught the glint of glasses beneath the hat. Blinking repeatedly to clear the haze of sleep from his eyes, Jacob snatched his axe from the ground and pushed himself to his feet, even though his legs groaned in protest. "Who the hell are you?" Jacob said, walking around the counter until he stood in front of the newcomer, who was around an inch shorter than him and thin enough to look almost emaciated. "I'm saving your sorry ass, and that's all you need to know right now. Follow me," trenchcoat-hat-and-glasses said, turning on his heel and stepping nonchalantly through the broken window in a swirl of coattails.


	4. Chapter 4: The Pack

The apartment was in less than stellar condition, but better than Jacob was expecting given the state of the world. The wallpaper had started to crack and peel, revealing the plaster and drywall beneath, and the carpet was fraying at the edges. The windows were covered with thick boards nailed into the frames, and the door had been torn out and replaced with a reinforced metal version, complete with a sliding bar. Tables had been overturned to serve as barricades, and the bedroom walls were lined with guns. It was like an entire gun store had been looted and had its contents transported here; sniper rifles, fully-automatic assault rifles and SMGs, shotguns – both pump-action and full-auto – and every variety of pistols one could ask for were hung on wall racks around the room, and several boxes stuffed full of ammunition were piled on the floor beneath them.

"Holy shit…" Jacob breathed, walking into the veritable armory. "Welcome," the man in the trenchcoat said, turning slowly with his arms held out in the manner of a stage magician unveiling his greatest trick, "To the war room. Look, but don't touch." Jacob nodded in stunned silence, and the mysterious figure unbuttoned and shrugged off his trenchcoat, revealing a black button-up dress shirt and matching pants beneath it. But what caught Jacob's eye were the twin .50 caliber Desert Eagles holstered at his hips, the silenced Uzis strapped to his sides, and the bandolier of various grenades across his chest. These weapons – with the exception of the Eagles – he slid from their holsters and hung on the appropriate wall racks, before donning his trenchcoat once more. Turning back to Jacob as he buttoned up the trenchcoat's front, he said "So, what's your name?" After a long silence, Jacob said "Er… Jacob. And yours?" The other man was silent for a long time, then said "It's been a long time since I had a name. Now I am nothing but a wraith, a specter of death lurking in a city of death." He and Jacob stood in rather tense silence for several moments, then Jacob said "So is it okay if I call you Wraith?" The newly-christened Wraith chuckled grimly, turned away, and said "Very well. It's as good a name as any."

"So, Wraith, you hear about any evac centers still standing?" Jacob said as the pair ate a crude lunch of canned chicken soup. Wraith took a moment to swallow the broth in his mouth, then said "The only one I hear is still operating is in New Orleans. Aside from that, the whole eastern half of the US has gone to shit. The army's trying to set up a quarantine line to protect the western US, but we both know how well _that's_ going to work." Jacob whistled in awe, and said "Well… we'd better get to New Orleans then, huh?" Wraith stood up from the table, empty bowl in hand, and was silent for a long moment, extracting one of the huge pistols from his hip holsters with his free hand. Turning the weapon over, he experimentally leveled it as if preparing to fire, then looked down at Jacob and simply said "Yes." "Do you have transportation?" Jacob said, leaning back in his chair and looking up at his companion. Wraith stood immobile for a few seconds, then pocketed the Eagle, pushed his glasses back up – they had slid a little ways down his nose during the discourse – and said again "Yes."

After they'd packed up the entire contents of what Wraith called his "war room" into boxes and loaded them aboard, the two amateur zombie hunters took a moment to enjoy cans of highly caffeinated soda, then got into the large black vehicle that squatted in the apartment complex's basement – Wraith had turned it into a makeshift garage – and gave eachother a somber nod before Wraith twisted his key in the ignition and jammed down on the accelerator.

The city outside was silent and as peaceful as could be expected during a zombie apocalypse, and one would almost call it serene except for the fires burning in the distance, turning the sky crimson, and the shambling infected, wrecked cars and half-eaten corpses that littered the street. This twisted parody of serenity was shattered however, as a sleek, jet-black van crashed through the boarded-up front doors of the apartment, sliding out amid a shower of splinters to skid to a halt in the middle of the road. It had been heavily reinforced with metal plating and electrified netting, and a huge snowplow had been affixed to the front, the bottom lined with metal spikes and razorwire. As the van's movement came to a halt, the huge rotary cannon mounted atop it spun to life with a strident roar, and Jacob let loose a primal howl from his position behind the massive weapon as it shredded the infected unfortunate enough to be caught in its line of fire.

"Where the _hell_ did you get this?" Jacob said into the radio headset Wraith had given him as the minigun spun to a halt, steam belching forth from the intimidating weapon's eight barrels. "I made it," came the reply, and the van pulled out into the street, swerving around wrecked cars. "Back before all this, I worked for the US government as a covert operative. Black Ops, that sort of thing. My security rating was so high that seeing me on the street was practically a federal offense, and I was a bit paranoid. With clearance enough to get full access to the armory, I quickly acquired a large stockpile of weapons and equipment. As the virus broke out, I was sent to this city to rescue a US senator who was on vacation here. It… didn't go well, and I was left stranded here with a veritable armory on my hands. Throw in a little ingenuity and a lot of free time, and you get this," Wraith said, as the van pulled out onto a broader street. "Well," Jacob said, running his fingers over the steel behemoth, "I'm sure as hell glad I-…" "_3 o'clock!_" Wraith's shout interrupted him, and Jacob's head snapped around to look. Standing silhouetted against the rising sun, beams of crimson fire lancing through the sky around it, was a sight that chilled Jacob's very blood. A pack of tanks.

"_What..._" Jacob said, as the rotary cannon swiveled around to track its new, formidable prey, "_Is…_" the barrels of the huge weapon started revolving, the whine of the weapon growing louder as the spin grew faster and faster, _"THAT!?_" Jacob practically screamed this last word, as a lance of flame stabbed outward from the muzzle of the weapon and its strident, chattering roar burst into life. The van lurched forward, hurtling through the streets as not one, not two, but _three_ behemoths of bone and gristle plowed into the concrete behind it, roaring and bellowing. Hunks of concrete smashed and skittered on the road around them as they swerved around abandoned cars, and Jacob yelled over the bellow of his massive weapon "_I thought tanks only ever hunted alone!_" "_So did I!_" came the curt reply. "_Shut up and shoot!_" The tank in the lead – the largest of the three, a hulking monstrosity swelled beyond reason, arms the size of trees swatting aside cars with childlike ease – was actually gaining on them, despite the high caliber bullets being poured into its chest from Jacob's minigun. "_DIE, you son of a bitch!_" Jacob howled as the massive thing drew closer and closer, crushing cars like aluminum cans beneath its massive limbs, a feral expression of unbound rage twisting the features of its comparatively tiny head, sunken deep into a mass of muscle and bone in its chest. Its torso and left arm had been literally torn apart by the bullets, revealing the bone and shredded muscle beneath, but it seemed not to notice, even as its left arm was severed just beneath the shoulder and sent bouncing and flopping behind it, trailing a steady stream of blood. "_Hang on!_" Wraith yelled, and Jacob turned briefly to look. "_What the-…_"

The van proved remarkably dexterous for a vehicle of its bulk, sliding through a gap between two buses so narrow that Jacob could hear the paint scraping off the sides. The end of the makeshift tunnel was blocked by a wrecked 4-door sedan, but this the van plowed through with relative ease, bending the front fender and sending the smaller vehicle skidding away to crush an unsuspecting infected on its way past. Wraith yanked hard on the steering wheel, and the van turned at a crazy angle, sliding to a halt in the middle of the intersection as the one-armed tank came pounding and roaring over the buses. Jacob's finger caressed the firing stud, and the minigun roared to life once more, this time tracking the swath of destruction up the huge creature's torso until the bullets finally blasted a hole through its foul skull. Its roar trailing off into a mumbling groan, the huge beast slumped over, its momentum carrying it forward, tumbling down to lay sprawled in the intersection. And then the two other tanks came over the buses after it.

"_Go!_" Jacob yelled, triggering the minigun once more, and letting loose a bestial roar as the first of the tanks neared the van. The high-caliber slugs from the minigun tore through its chest, and the beast staggered as its heart and one of its lungs were blown out its back in a fountain of blood. Slumping over, the huge creature coughed once, a horrid, shuddering sound, then lay still. The second tank, however, had reached the still-accelerating van before Jacob could track the minigun towards it, and he felt the monstrous beast's huge fingers close around him, ripping him bodily from the turret and casting him aside like a children's toy.

As he impacted the concrete wall of a nearby building, Jacob's entire world disappeared in a flash of searing agony, and he was almost sucked into tempting, oh-so-tempting oblivion. Curling into himself, he writhed in a pool of misery, and was vaguely conscious of a coppery tang on his tongue. Coughing, he forced his eyes open with an effort of will, and the world swam before his eyes, as if viewed through water. Brutally uncurling himself, every action straining already frayed nerves, he reached out a hand towards his .45 handgun, flung from its holder when he hit the wall. It was just out of reach. _Shit._ Doing his best to dig his fingers into the concrete, Jacob hauled himself forward as the tank's bellows grew louder, adrenaline coursing through his blood and blotting out some – but not all – of the pain. Hand over hand, agonizingly slowly, he crawled, his goal growing ever nearer but always tantalizingly out of reach. _Goddamn it, I'm __**not**__ dying here,_ he thought stubbornly, and pulled his legs in beneath him. _Up. __**Up.**_ Slowly, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees, and made one final, desperate lunge for the pistol. His fingers closed around the grip just as the tank's huge fist sailed over him, barely missing him and taking a chunk out of the wall behind him. Jacob rolled out of the way, and his arm snapped up into firing position as the tank turned to pursue him. Ten shots rang out in quick succession, each one finding its mark and punching through the tank's head and chest. After the tenth, the tank collapsed backwards, face twisted into a rictus snarl of fury. Jacob was half-conscious of Wraith's van grinding to a halt next to him, and as the other man's arms closed about his shoulders and started hauling him to safety, Jacob faded into merciful blackness.


	5. Chapter 5: Into the Wild

**Author's Note: Sorry for the lateness, guys and gals. Writer's block is **_**not**_ **my friend, neither is trying to finish up three projects for school in one week. Ugh. Finally managed to get chapter 5 written: enjoy!**

Slowly, painfully, Jacob struggled to consciousness. The blackness that he'd come to know sucked at him, tugging him back down into sleep, but he resisted. Pushing aside the haze of darkness, he blinked open his eyes to see the inside of the van stretched out above him, so dimly lit that it was hard to see anything. Sitting up, he sucked in his breath as he felt a few broken ribs make their presence known, and immediately looked around for his axe. Sighing as he saw it propped up against one wall, he reached out and took hold of the familiar weapon, feeling the reassuring solidity of the long, wooden haft beneath his fingers. "Hey, pretty girl," he whispered, sliding his powerful fingers up and caressing the red steel of the axe's head. "You miss me?" The van went over a bump then, and Jacob cursed as the axe cut a small gash in the tip of his finger. Wiping the blood on his pant leg, Jacob reached out and hammered on the partition that separated him from the driver's compartment. The van screeched to a halt, and after a long pause the back doors flung open, letting in a flood of light that seared Jacob's eyes, forcing him to raise a hand to shelter them. "Rise and shine," Wraith said, and smiled wryly.

"Where are we?" Jacob said, cradling his ribs as he climbed tentatively out of the back of Wraith's van, landing with a jarring thud on… dirt? Looking around, his eyes widened in surprise as he took in the lack of buildings, the soaring spires of concrete and metal replaced with sparse trees and thick underbrush. "The woods just south of Atlanta, heading to New Orleans. Or, as they say in the local parlance, 'n'awlins'." The fake southern accent was foreign on Wraith's tongue, and came across as an annoying nasal drawl. _Definitely not a native southerner, _Jacob thought, climbing gingerly back into the passenger seat of the big black van. As there were no zombies around (yet), he contented himself with relaxing in the shotgun seat, giving his ribs – and countless other bruises and scrapes – a welcome respite.

"Got anything to drink in here?" Jacob said, suddenly realizing how thirsty he was. Twisting the key in the ignition, Wraith wordlessly passed over a water bottle, from which Jacob gulped thirstily. It was warm, and by no means clean, but it might as well have been nectar from heaven for all Jacob cared. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve and setting the bottle in one of the van's cupholders, Jacob turned to look out the window at the forest sliding by leisurely outside. For a minute, he thought he caught a glint of yellow, feral eyes in the bushes, but then they were gone. A bestial growl sounded just on the edge of Jacob's hearing, and his grip tightened on his axe until his knuckles whitened. "Hear that?" he whispered, and Wraith nodded, hand snaking to the Desert Eagle holstered at his right hip. With a resounding thud, something landed on the roof of the van, and Jacob heard the scrape of claws on metal, followed by a ravenous screech.

Wraith whipped his pistol from its holster almost faster than Jacob's eyes could follow, the formidable weapon a blur as it tracked upwards, punching three rounds through the ceiling of the van. On the third, he was rewarded with a howl of pain, and a claw that used to be a hand ripped through the metal ceiling, snatching Wraith's outstretched arm and squeezing. Blood welled up from around the beast's talons, and Wraith grunted in pain as the pistol dropped from spasming fingers, struggling to free his hand. Turning, Jacob struggled to bring his weapon to bear in such confined quarters, and finally gave it up and lunged up through the hatch in the ceiling used to access the turret. Hauling himself up onto the roof of the van, Jacob spotted his would-be killer crouched atop the vehicle, huddling close to the ground like an animal. Its hooded sweatshirt hid its face, but he thought he could make out feral, yellow eyes glinting in the shadows. It let out a hissing growl as it caught sight of him, and Jacob tackled it with a roar, bowling the unsuspecting creature over and, with a grisly snapping sound, wrenching its arm free of the van. Rolling over and over atop the van, the pair struggled for dominance, each seeking a weak point in the other's guard, each wary of the other's attacks. Brutal ferocity met grim determination, and for the moment the two were at a stalemate. Jacob, desperate to beat this creature before his already-weakened strength failed him, slammed a knee into his opponent's stomach, and for a moment, the foul claws lost purchase on his arms. Jacob noticed, and lunged upward, slamming his forehead into the face of the beast. Reeling backwards, the creature hissed and growled in pain, black blood running freely from a broken nose. Tackling the undead thing, Jacob pulled back his fist and slammed it with all his might into his antagonist's face, not once but again and again, until the bone crunched beneath his bloodstained fingers and the creature's struggles ceased.

"How much farther is it to New Orleans?" Jacob said, wrapping a strip of gauze around his bloody knuckles. Wraith, his arm similarly adorned with bloody bandages, grunted "Not more than twelve hours, at this rate." The van hit a bump then, and Jacob's scraped knuckles collided with the dashboard. Biting back a virulent curse and cradling his stinging hand, he looked out the window at the woods around them, growing ever thicker as they progressed. The rough dirt track they were driving on was barely wide enough for the van, and repeatedly they were forced to drive around through the forest when a wrecked vehicle blocked their path. It was a miracle they'd made it this far, maneuvering the big black van through the tightly-packed trees, but they had, and now steadily rolled along southwest.

"Unbelievable," Wraith growled, folding his arms across his chest as the van ground to a halt, the needle on the fuel gauge resting steadily on the letter E. "The damn thing was topped off before we left." Yawning and stretching not unlike a cat, Jacob said "Well, I guess that means we're walking from here on out. You _do_ have a map, don't you?" Wraith wordlessly held up a folded square of paper as proof, and Jacob nodded approval. "Well then," Jacob said, shoving open the van door and hopping out onto the dirt track, "Let's get moving."

About two miles later, they ran into the remnants of what might be called civilization. A picket fence made a rough circle about a hundred yards in diameter in the woods, gates made of hastily nailed-together boards appearing where it intercepted the road. Inside this makeshift wall was a shanty town of sorts, composed of flimsy lean-tos and shacks cobbled together from anything and everything that came to hand. There were some sleeping bags laying out in the open, without even the protection of a tent, and a few more durable structures nailed together from wood planks and covered with tarps. Blood and corpses – and infected – were everywhere.

Wraith raised his sniper rifle, placing his eye to the scope. One of the zombies had its head blown to pieces before it even took notice of the threat. Two more were felled shortly after. Then the rest noticed, and charged in a howling, gurgling mob that swarmed over the fence towards them.

Stepping forward, Jacob brought his axe around in a whistling arc, the red steel biting deep into two infected that charged him. A third met its end with the flashing axe in its skull, and a fourth was neatly beheaded. Before long, Jacob had carved a red swath through the attackers, leaving mangled corpses in his wake as he strode forward towards the crude village. From somewhere behind him, he could hear Wraith firing off calm, controlled shots in a steady rhythm. _Bang… wait… bang… wait… bang…_ Each shot found its mark, and before long the two of them had whittled the horde's numbers down to nothing, leaving only their rotting corpses behind.

Hopping the fence, Jacob glanced around at the scene of utter poverty and despair; shanties constructed from bookshelves, car parts, picture frames, with blankets and clothes used as makeshift curtains or even strung up as a semblance of a wall to keep the wind out. Jacob caught sight of a newspaper laying discarded by one of the sleeping bags, and crouched down, gingerly picking it up off the bloodstained ground. The headline read "**Green Flu Spreads: US Government Urges People to "Stay Indoors and Barricade Your Home."**" Jacob chuckled wryly at this, letting the paper slip from his fingers. _Stay indoors. Yeah, sure. We all know how well __**that**__ worked out._ Turning as Wraith came up behind him, toting their sizable quantity of luggage, Jacob stood up with a grunt – the simple action jarred his slowly-healing ribs – and shouldered two of the duffel bags. The hard, angular weapons inside bumped and jostled as he walked, and the sharp corners dug into his back, but he didn't complain. In all honesty, having a couple dozen guns close to hand was pretty reassuring. Smiling at this thought, Jacob adjusted the weight on his shoulder a little and set off down the road. Thoughts and worries nagged at his mind; _It's ridiculously far to New Orleans. We'll never make it there on foot. Do we have enough food? Water?_ But he pushed these thoughts away like annoying insects. Now was not the time to be worrying about such things. Now, the only thing he needed to worry about was putting one foot in front of the other.

Oh, and killing anything that got in his way.


	6. Chapter 6: One More Name on the List

"So this is New Orleans, eh?" Jacob said, standing before the barricade that surrounded the city, one fist akimbo, the other holding his bloodstained axe. It had been three days since their van broke down, and they had trekked through forests, over hills and rivers, and finally reached their quarry as the sun was high overhead, throwing its beams of radiance down upon the weary twosome. The suburbs and slums of New Orleans sprawled out before them like a quilt, pockmarked here and there with columns of smoke rising into the startlingly blue sky. Off in the far distance, spires of concrete, metal and glass could be seen soaring up into the air, one of which was blazing like a torch, occasionally belching forth a gout of flame as another floor was set alight. Faint staccato bursts of gunfire could be heard off in the distance, intertwined with the occasional scream. Not the blood-crazed howl of the infected, an actual, honest-to-god human scream. "Well," Jacob said, and started down the slope out of the woods, "We're here."

As they walked, a pair of military fighter jets screamed overhead, low enough for the two survivors to feel the wind of their passing. Moments later, one of the buildings before them ruptured in a bloom of incandescent fire, spraying wood and infected bits everywhere. "Holy shit," Jacob whispered, eyes widening. Discarding the gun bag that he'd lugged all through the forest, Jacob said "We need to get to the evac zone, _now_," and started off at a run towards the city. With a resigned sigh, Wraith slipped the heavy bag off and followed, casting one last glance over his shoulder at the veritable armory they were leaving behind.

The barricade had, apparently, been pathetically effective. Huge sections of the chain-link fence had been torn apart or knocked over, and the military APCs arrayed behind it were unmoving, lifeless and splattered with blood. Corpses were strewn all around the hole in the wire, and Jacob knelt down to inspect one that was in the process of climbing over the ruined section of fence. Turning it over, he grimaced at the trail of bloody ruin across its chest, then sucked in his breath as he looked up at its – no, _his_ – face. There was no sign of infection there, merely a trail of blood running down his check from his mouth, presumably from a punctured lung. His skin tone was normal – if a tad pallid from death – his eyes were perfectly human and not the bloodshot, feral orbs Jacob had come to know all too well, and his expression was not one of bestial rage, but of fear and pain. "Shit," he whispered, hauling the corpse off the fence and letting it rest on the grass. "What?" Wraith said, coming up behind him. Still kneeling, Jacob growled "These people aren't infected. _Someone_," he gave the world a vicious emphasis, "was shooting perfectly healthy, ordinary _humans_." Wraith muttered a string of curses under his breath, and after an awkward silence, Jacob stood up, rested his axe on his shoulder, and said "Well, we'd better get moving."

New Orleans looked even worse on the inside than on the outside. It was a city under siege, the houses boarded up and plastered with quarantine notices, the roads dotted with concrete barriers and barbed wire, strewn with abandoned cars and the ubiquitous scattering of corpses. However, as they walked, Jacob caught a faint voice, muttering to itself. "Hold up," he said, and turned to locate the source of the voice. It was coming from a nearby house, the door bashed in, its lock broken. Axe gripped tightly in white-knuckled hands, Jacob prowled up the front steps, gaze darting around. As he entered the building, his eyes took a minute to adjust to the gloom, and when he did he breathed a silent whistle of awe. He was standing in what looked like a kitchen, the tile floor covered in a mat of corpses. Blood had been sprayed across the walls, windows, and even the ceiling, though how it got there was a mystery to Jacob, and one that he did not care to contemplate. The muttering – yes, definitely human speech, not the fever-crazed mumbling and moaning of the infected – was coming from behind the kitchen counter. The place stank of blood, death and gunsmoke, a cocktail of scents that Jacob had come to know all too well in the past few weeks. "Hello?" Jacob said cautiously, creeping around the desk, axe at the ready. The sight that met his eyes made even his battle-hardened blood run cold.

Sitting huddled behind the counter, curled up into himself and rocking back and forth like a scared child, was a man who looked a little older than Jacob, dressed in blood-stained military fatigues. He was talking softly to himself, his voice close to breaking into whimpering sobs by the sound of it. He was speaking in sentence fragments, and most of his words were unintelligible, but Jacob made out the word "zombies" and "killed" repeated over and over. "Hey," Jacob said, reaching out a hand a gripping the man on the shoulder. "What happened here?" The man shot a hand up, grabbing onto Jacob's in a grip so tight that Jacob winced. "They… they're all dead… all of 'em. Johnny, and Rick, and Melissa, and Harvey." Jacob gently shook the quivering man, and said rather more forcefully than he intended "_What happened here?_" The man half-jumped, and looked up at Jacob as if seeing him for the first time. "Who… who are you?" the man said in a small, tremulous voice. "My name's Jacob," Jacob said, crouching down next to the other man. "Who are you?" "Corporal… Corporal Ethan Sanders." "What happened here?" Jacob said again, looking Ethan straight in the eye. Swallowing hard, Ethan said "I was… I was stationed here to guard the quarantine zone border. We… we… we…" he trailed off into muttering again, and Jacob shook him a little harder this time. "Hey! Focus. Tell me what happened," Jacob said, and Ethan flinched as if he'd been struck, before taking a deep breath, and saying "We – me and the rest of 10th squad – were stationed here to keep anyone from getting in or out. A bunch… a bunch of civilians ran out of the woods the second day I was here, begging and pleading with us to let them in. They… they even started climbing the fences. Then Captain Johnson… he… he ordered us to open fire. Stop them from getting into the city. We killed every single one." Ethan looked up then, and Jacob recoiled from the fear – and soul-deep sorrow and remorse – evident in his sea-green eyes. "Women, and children… some as young as seven. Every. Single. One." Jacob's grip tightened on Ethan's shoulder, and he fought to keep his breathing steady. His jaw worked, and finally he managed to growl "Your captain… is he still alive?" Ethan nodded. "Where is he?" Jacob was, at this point, right up in Ethan's face, gripping the other man's collar and snarling every word like a curse. This did nothing to help Ethan's nervousness, and he stammered "He… he was p-pulled back across the b-bridge! Yesterday!" Jacob contemptuously let go of Ethan's collar, letting him slump over to lay on the floor, and turned on his heel, storming out of the building. _One more name on my list. Better make peace with your god, Captain Johnson._

As the pair of survivors worked their way through the bloody, pockmarked streets, Jacob strode grimly with his head down, hands white-knuckled on the haft of his axe, his eyes steely chips of flint beneath lowered brows. Wraith took notice, and, after glancing over a couple times, tentatively said "Jacob, are you… alright?" Jacob growled "Fine," and strode on without so much as a backward glance. Shrugging his shoulders and accepting the obvious lie, Wraith followed along behind him, scanning the city for any infected that might try and ambush them.

They reached the foot of the massive bridge by sundown, having battled their way through the zombie-infested city, street by street, hour by hour, until they had both almost run out of shells and Jacob sported a deep gash from a hunter, running from his left shoulder to his right hip. Wraith had hastily bandaged it up during a brief respite they had taken in a boarded-up fast food joint, but a few rolls of gauze, a bottle of antiseptic and some painkillers hardly counted as a "fix." The wound stung something fierce and took most of the strength from Jacob's left arm, but he slogged on grimly without complaint. However, looking up at the bridge now, however, he finally lent voice to his frustration and pain. "God_ damn_ it!" he growled, and slumped down on a nearby curb, letting his axe fall from limp fingers. Following his gaze with arms crossed, Wraith had to admit that his anger was justified. The bridge had been blown apart by the army, leaving only a spit of concrete and metal jutting out over the river. "Come on," Wraith said, walking up and patting Jacob on his uninjured shoulder. "They might still have a working radio up there." With a sigh, Jacob hauled himself wearily to his feet, and started grimly placing one foot in front of the other. He'd done it for so long almost mechanically, walking from southern Georgia all the way to New Orleans, so he might as well keep walking. _One more mile. _He thought, pushing open the door that led into the bridge guardpost. _George, Rob, Jack… this is for you guys._


	7. Chapter 7: Jessica

**To all ya'll who've bothered to read and review -- you guys are awesome! Sorry about the lack of updates recently, things have been pretty hectic here and I haven't had much time to write. Well, here's chapter 7: enjoy!**

"Rescue 3, drop point bravo is your LZ." "Roger that, Papa Gator. We are Oscar Mike, ETA 10 minutes." Jacob's head snapped around at this curt, static-punctuated exchange, and he said "Is that what I think it is?" Wraith nodded, and Jacob started painfully hauling himself up the red metal ladder. Every time he pulled with his left arm, a twinge of pain lanced down the jagged rend in his chest, but he gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it. Finally struggling up the last few feet, he jumped off the ladder, already running by the time his boots hit the floor. Bursting through the red metal door, his gaze flashed around and finally came to rest on a radio sitting clutched in the hand of a dead man, the stiff fingers effectively pinning the object to his chest. Running over and rudely snatching the radio from the unfortunate man's dead fingers, Jacob mashed the talk button and half-yelled "To anyone out there, this is Corporal Jacob Stromberg! Please respond!"

"Holy shit! Corporal Stromberg, you were reported as KIA two weeks ago!" "Yeah, well if I was dead, I couldn't be talking to you right now, could I!?" The pain from Jacob's wound was making him more irritable than usual, and the sentence came out a bit louder than he would have otherwise intended. "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir," the voice on the other side said, then added "Rescue 3, you have new orders. Divert to pick-up point Charlie to retrieve Corporal Stromberg here." "Roger that, Papa Gator," another voice said, and the first voice came back "Corporal, the bridge – as you can probably see – is no longer a valid evac point. You'll need to go down to the docks at 433 Riverdale Boulevard: know where that is?" "Yes, sir," Jacob lied. They had a map, so he figured he could find it pretty easily, and the last thing he wanted was to be delayed even further by this soldier giving him lengthy directions. "Well, head there ASAP, Corporal. The chopper will be there to pick you up in approximately fifteen minutes!"

Jacob half-climbed, half-slid down the metal ladder, jumping off as he neared the ground and landing already at a run. Not bothering to open the door, he simply slammed into it with his shoulder, wincing as pain lanced outward from the point of impact. The door burst outward, and Jacob followed it, sprinting off and doing his best to ignore the pain that flared up every time his boots hit the ground. Wraith followed after him, his long, loping stride carrying him easily over the ground. Reaching out and grabbing onto a street sign to turn himself, Jacob immediately regretted the act as his bad arm was wrenched nearly out of its socket. Cursing, he did his best to maintain his pace while cradling his throbbing limb, and in his distracted state didn't notice the lethal obstacle in his path until Wraith shouted "_Jacob!_" Skidding to a halt at the shout, Jacob glanced around until his eyes came to rest on the emaciated shape curled into itself in the middle of the road, face buried in its clawed hands, shuddering as wracking sobs were torn from its throat. Wraith's shout and Jacob's presence alerted it to the presence of prey, and it lifted its head slowly, glancing around with tear-stained, blood-red eyes. Those eyes settled on Jacob, and the creature let out a hissing screech of rage, leaping up and charging forward, claws outstretched.

"Shit!" Jacob yelled, reaching his good arm behind him as he hastily walked backwards, wrapping his fingers around the hilt of the fire axe that he had sheathed on his back. Drawing the weapon as fast as he could while half-running backwards, he brought it forward in a deadly arc, hissing by inches from his opponent's face as the Witch ducked and weaved out of the way. The huge claws slashed upwards, and Jacob cried out in pain and surprise as they cut deep, bloody furrows in his chest. His panicked flight turned into dazed stumbling, and his pursuer closed in for the kill.

_"Hey Jacob, it's me, Jessica. Yeah, so I'm not going to be able to make it to our movie night this Saturday… my dad's come down with something, and my mom doesn't want me spreading it to anyone else. So, give me a call back some time, and we can re-schedule once we get rid of this disease. Probably just a cold anyway. 'Kay, see you!" _That had been three weeks ago. Absently, Jacob wondered if Jess was still alive. A girl of 19 wouldn't stand much chance against the hordes of bloodthirsty monsters that now roamed the world, but she was a tough girl. Always had been. She was probably at wherever the hell everyone was getting evacuated to, waiting for him. And he would never show up, and she would be left all alone in this harsh, unforgiving nightmare of a world.

_No._

_ Hell no._

Jacob's knuckles whitened on the haft of his axe. His bad arm snapped up, grasping the wooden hilt with newfound strength. His rage and grim determination fueled him, and he brought the axe up as the bloodstained claws came down. Red metal slashed through red flesh, and the Witch screamed in furious agony as one of her hands was severed at the wrist, the loose appendage flopping away, spurting blood. The axe screamed down again, cutting a deep slash in the Witch's gut. Those feral red eyes flicked up, meeting Jacob's furious glare, and with one last swing of that bloodstained axe, it was all over.

Wraith watched in stunned silence as his companion, who ten seconds ago appeared to be nothing more than a Witch's next meal, turned that same Witch into a quivering corpse at his feet. Despite himself, he was impressed. Whatever was fueling that boy was like nothing he'd ever seen – and he'd seen a lot. Walking up, he glanced down at the Witch, lying prone on the bloodstained road, its face a disfigured mess. "Are you… okay?" Wraith said, giving the bloody rends in Jacob's chest a nervous glance. Jacob merely growled "What does it look like?" and started off at a limping run. With a sigh, Wraith set off after him.

By the time they'd reached 433 Riverdale Boulevard – which was a boarded-up brick boathouse on the edge of the river – Jacob's condition had worsened. His breathing was ragged, his limp had gotten worse, and his entire front was drenched with blood. It had taken them – by Wraith's battered wristwatch, which was admittedly unreliable – just over ten minutes. Jacob gratefully plopped down on a nearby crate, his exhaustion and wounds finally overcoming him. His eyelids flickered, and for a moment he was almost sucked down into that tempting, seductive void from which there was no return. But he resisted. He knew that if he closed his eyes now, he would never open them again. His eyes flicked up as Wraith neared, and he didn't protest as the older man removed the first aid kit from his back and started patching up the gaping wounds on Jacob's chest. Peeling back the bloodstained shirt to reveal the hardened muscle beneath, Wraith dexterously swathed the bloody gashes in gauze after a liberal application of antiseptic. Passing over the bottle of pain relievers, he stood up as Jacob grimly unscrewed the top, shook two tablets into his hand, and swallowed them. Replacing the cap, Jacob returned the bottle to Wraith and lay back on the crate, feeling the hard wood dig into his back. _Not the most comfortable bed I've ever laid on… then again, not the worst, either._

"Jacob! Goddamn it, get up, Jacob! The chopper's here, and they brought half the city with them!" Jacob, sleepily blinking open heavy eyelids, idly remarked upon the fact that he wasn't dead. It was almost disappointing. However, his overtaxed brain did not have long to ponder this thought before it became aware of new sounds: the rhythmic thrumming of a helicopter, growing steadily louder, and another sound, one grown infinitely more familiar over the past few weeks. The blood-crazed gurgling howl ripped from untold numbers of throats, blending together to form a cacophony akin to ocean waves. "Ah, shit," he grumbled, blearily sitting up and fumbling for his axe with hands sapped of strength. He could see the helicopter now, circling down from out of the sky towards one of the docks. Wraith was already making for it, waving for Jacob to follow him. Cursing, Jacob stumbled forward, wincing with each step. The feral growls and roars were growing closer, and Jacob forced himself to not look backwards, simply placing one foot in front of the other… _again_. Wraith was on the helicopter, alternating waving frantically and taking potshots with his rifle. Setting his jaw, Jacob broke into a run, forcing his unwilling legs to move. As he neared the helicopter he picked up speed, until he was sprinting full-out, his muscles screaming in protest. _Just a little farther now…_ With one final, desperate effort, Jacob took a running leap, landing roughly in the passenger compartment of the helicopter. The chopper lifted and swerved at an insane angle, and Jacob felt himself sliding towards the still-open bay door, his fingers scrabbling in vain for purchase on the smooth metal – and then someone had taken a firm hold of his wrist, stopping his movement. Looking up, he saw Wraith holding onto his arm with one hand and a protruding beam with the other, feet braced against one wall and the floor. And then the helicopter leveled out, and the last thing Jacob saw before fading once more into blissful sleep was the door of the helicopter sliding shut.


	8. Chapter 8: The Safe Zone

In his brief flashes of wakefulness, Jacob was conscious of light – far, far too bright in his opinion, searing his eyes and making him wish for the benevolent embrace of sleep again – and voices. The voices weren't really saying anything of import, just babbling on the edge of his consciousness. He picked out a few words here and there, and one time he felt certain he heard the word "procedure," but his sleep-addled brain discarded these details as trivial and useless. And then, at last, the numbing, dreamless blackness took him, and he knew no more for a long time.

Light again. Not quite as bright as the painful, blinding flashes he had cursed and cringed at during his long sleep, but still bright enough to be uncomfortable, even through his closed eyelids. He was vaguely aware of a thin, almost plastic-like blanket brushing against his skin, and then some part of his brain noticed that he was stark naked, and was slightly annoyed by this fact. Then, with a heroic effort, he opened his eyes.

He was in a hospital, although he had already assumed that much. The sterile white ceiling gazed down at him impassively, and the light fixture mounted in it blazed away like a miniature sun. He was slightly surprised that he felt no pain from his wounds – then noticed that he felt nothing _at all_ save the light brush of the sheets, and even this was disconnected, as if felt by someone else. _Damn, but they must have me on some serious painkillers._ He struggled to sit up, willing his numbed muscles to work, and managed through force of will alone to prop himself up on his elbows so he could look around. The walls were of the same plain white as the ceiling, save for one of them, which was ornamented by a metal door – white, of course – and a thin slit of a window. Then he looked down, and hissed in his breath.

He was lying on a roughly standard hospital bed, completely naked save for the sheet draped across his lower half. Various tubes and IVs were hooked up to numerous parts of his body, even running – ugh – up his nose, presumably to provide oxygen. His chest was completely swathed in bandages, and a huge dark stain had spread across them. In points, the blood had even seeped through the gauze and formed little wet puddles on his chest.

He was interrupted in his perusal of himself by raised voices outside, and turned his head to look. The door banged open and a woman clad in a surgeon's blue-green smock and facemask entered, carrying various medical devices too numerous and obscure for Jacob to even hope to identify. Jacob feebly tried to speak, but all that came out was something between a groan and a squeak. _Goddamn it._ The woman made vague shushing noises, presumably intended to be reassuring, and gently pushed Jacob back down into a prone position. Jacob reached up a hand to try and push her away, but instead ended up weakly swatting at thin air. _Ah shit, my hand-eye coordination's gone too. What the hell do they have me on!?_ The woman extracted a syringe from her pocket, popped the cap off and slid the needle into Jacob's forearm. Before he could even formulate a proper thought about what they were putting in him _now_, Jacob had slipped into dark, dreamless sleep once more.

The next time he woke, he was a bit more in control of his body, which satisfied him to no end. The door opened mere moments after he blinked open his eyes, and the familiar figure of Wraith stormed in, followed by a few trailing physicians who made feeble protestations as the black-garbed man swept towards Jacob's bed. "Wraith!" Jacob croaked, and sat up in bed, doing his best to grin. Wraith grinned back – his trenchcoat was unbuttoned in the front, the high collar pulled to the sides to reveal his chiseled features – and strode forward, ignoring the doctors that flocked behind him. The first thing that Wraith dropped on Jacob's bed was a pair of pants, to which Jacob was inordinately thankful, and then Wraith sweetened the deal further by adding a pair of underwear to the pot and gracefully turning his back. Jacob glanced down at himself – thankfully free of IVs this time – slid out of bed with considerable difficulty, and stood up altogether too fast for a man in his condition. Swooning, he managed to reach an arm out and grab onto a nearby shelf for stability until his balance returned, then shook his head to clear it and staggered over to the bed. Remarkably enough given the pain in his chest – which was returning despite the painkillers Jacob had been pumped full of – and the fact that his muscles felt like rubber, he managed to awkwardly slide into the undergarments and jeans. Fastening the button around his hips, he turned walked around the bed to stand beside Wraith, and in front of the crowd of thoroughly displeased-looking doctors. The lead doctor, a thin balding man wearing a long white coat, folded his arms across his chest and said "I cannot allow this. This man is in no condition to travel." Jacob growled something unintelligible, and Wraith folded his arms as well, removing his dark glasses and glaring down at the doctor with a stare that could wither plants in their pots. "I am an agent of the United States Government," he said, then added softly "…or what's left of it…" before continuing "And I need this man for a government operation. And with all due respect, _doctor_, you can go to hell, because you do not come anywhere near my security clearance." The doctor looked about to burst, and Wraith roughly shouldered past him, growling "Doctors." Without a backward glance, Jacob followed him.

Ten minutes later, they had acquired Jacob a shirt to wear over his still rather pronounced chest wounds, and the two men had taken seats on a bench so Wraith could fill Jacob in on all that he'd missed. "Wait, this is a _government_ base?" Jacob said, raising an incredulous eyebrow. Wraith nodded, taking a sip from the bottle of water he'd bought not five minutes before and passing the beverage over to Jacob, who took a rather more generous gulp. "Specifically, Base Hephaestus, in the mountains of California. It's essentially one big lab to study the effects of the infection – and thus we, as well as all the rest of humanity fortunate enough to be immune to the disease, were shuttled here." Jacob took a moment to digest this, then said "So who's in charge of relocation? I have a question to ask him." Wraith, not bothering to ask what question Jacob had in mind, simply pointed a finger at a nondescript black cube squatting in a nearby corner of the sprawling complex, and said "John McArthur's his name. He's in there." Standing up and stretching – an act Jacob immediately regretted as it pulled on his not-quite-healed injuries – Jacob said "Okay, thanks. I should be back here in around half an hour." Shrugging, Wraith stood up as well, said "Works for me," and started off towards another nearby structure. Suddenly thinking of something, Jacob said "Hey, wait." Turning, Wraith wordlessly raised an eyebrow, as if asking "Yes?" Reaching out a hand, Jacob said "Did you manage to get any guns in here?" "Of course," Wraith said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and tossed him a .45 caliber Colt handgun. Jacob recognized it instantly as one of his own, and grinned a wolf smile. "Thanks, Wraith. You're a lifesaver," he said, stuffing the gun in his waistband and letting his newly-bought leather jacket dangle down over the protruding handle. He'd get in all kinds of trouble if he was found out, but he'd lived with a gun at his side constantly for the past few weeks, and to be without one almost made him feel naked.

And he was _not_ going to walk into the teeth of bureaucracy naked.

"Come in." The voice was smooth and disinterested, every drawling syllable seeming to say 'I have more important things to attend to than _you_.' Jacob repressed an urge to punch the owner of the voice, and stepped through the door into the large, relatively plain office.

The room was walled with plaster painted an odd shade of pale red, and carpeted in a similar hue. A chandelier hung from the ceiling tiles, illuminating a wooden desk behind which sat a rather overweight man, maybe in his mid-forties, wearing an expensive-looking business suit and reading glasses. Innumerable books and papers were spread out on the table before him, one of which was apparently in the process of being read. The man – John McArthur, according to the sign on his door and the plaque on his desk – looked up as Jacob entered, but almost instantly looked back down again. "I hear you're in charge of relocating survivors?" Jacob said, shutting the door behind him. "I am," John said, scribbling a note on a piece of paper in front of him. "Do you have a record of a Jessica Brooke being moved anywhere?" John picked up a thick book and flipped through it, scanning the pages. "Hmm… not by name, but we have several entries without names. How peculiar…" he rubbed his double chin in thought, then looked up and said "Describe her?" Jacob stood in thought for a moment, forming a picture of the beautiful girl in his head. It wasn't hard. "Five foot seven, curly blonde hair, ice-blue eyes?" More flipping, scanning, humming, chin-scratching. Finally, he said "We do have an entry here that matches that description…" Jacob's heart leapt into his throat, and he leaned forward almost unconsciously. "Moved to the… let me see here… Special Handling building. Interesting." "_Where?_" Jacob said, a little more forcefully than he had intended. "In this very complex. It's the big, octagonal metal building in the northeast corner. You really can't miss it." Jacob was out the door before John had even finished talking, shooting a quick "Thank you," over his shoulder and slamming the door before he was gone, leaving John McArthur sitting dazed, staring at the spot where he'd been standing moments before.


	9. Chapter 9: Dirty Little Secret

As it turned out, the Special Handling building was indeed large, octagonal, and very hard to miss. Jacob now stood before it, looking up at the imposing, pristine grey façade. Walking up, he looked at the big, sliding metal door, reached up and rapped on it with his knuckles three times. Feeling rather absurd just walking up and knocking on the door of a government building, Jacob glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then shook his head at his own behavior. _What are you, some socially-paranoid high schooler? Jesus, man, get a grip._

To Jacob's surprise, the door actually ground open a few moments later, revealing a tall woman dressed in a somber black jacket and pants, her equally black hair combed back into a ponytail, holding a clipboard. Her stern, cold eyes scanned him for a few seconds, then she said "What do you want?" "I was told a… friend of mine had been moved here. I came to see her." "I'm sorry, but visits aren't allowed," she said, and went to shut the door, but Jacob stepped beneath it, reaching up an arm and stopping the door's movement. "Listen," Jacob said through teeth clenched with the effort of holding the mechanized door in place. "You really don't understand. I'm a Corporal in the United States Army, and I _really_ need to see her. So let me in, and I promise I won't make a scene, because I'm pretty sure you folks here don't want public attention – which is exactly what you'd get if a member of your beloved armed forces spoke out against you. Deal?" The woman's jaw worked, and her eyes flashed with annoyance. Clearly, she was not used to being defied on her own ground. However, after a few moments she hit the open button on the door control again, and growled "Fine. Come with me."

She led Jacob back through a maze of identical white-walled hallways until Jacob was well and truly lost in the labyrinthine building, helplessly trailing along behind the black-clad woman and frantically looking around for landmarks. Before long, however, they stopped in front of a metal door flanked by armed guards in the livery of the National Guard. They glared suspiciously at Jacob, who stared back with a withering glower he'd learned from his drill sergeant as the woman he was following slid her keycard into the slot by the door. The portal hissed open, and the woman stepped through, motioning Jacob to follow.

The room on the far side was a simple, unadorned metal-walled cube, bisected by a sheet of plexiglass. On the far side of this sheet was a metal chair, and in the chair sat a slumped female figure, thin to nearly the point of emaciation and hooked up to various tubes and wires. The young woman raised her head as Jacob entered, and through a veil of dirty blonde curls he saw her eyes – blood red, with only a few tiny hints of their original blue left in them – glitter with rage. His heart almost stopped in his chest, and his blood turned to ice. The creature that sat before him had once been his Jessica, yes. But now she was one of the infected, and not only that but a member of the Witch Strain, as he'd heard it referred to at various points.

And then the thing that once was Jessica stopped and tilted its head to one side, its eyes sparkling with… recognition? It feebly stretched a hand – no, a claw – towards him, and he saw its mouth open and close. _Is it… talking?_ Stumbling forward, he pressed his hands to the glass, and yelled "Jessica!" The thing on the other side struggled to get up, but the harnesses of the chair held her fast, and she flinched as some unknown force punished her for her efforts. _Electric shocks maybe?_ Jacob felt his hands ball into fists on the plexiglass, and his heart drummed in his ears. His jaw clenched, and he whirled, eyes alight with a primal rage that made the woman beside him stagger backward in shock, her own eyes wide. "Who did this?" Jacob said, the deadly calm in his voice carrying more weight than any furious shout. "Who ordered her to be put in that chair?" The woman flinched, but didn't say anything, merely ducking out the door. Jacob turned back towards the form huddled in the chair, and mouthed "It's going to be okay." The Jessica-Witch scrunched its brow in concentration, then feebly tilted its head downward in the tiniest of nods. Jacob was about to say something else when he felt powerful hands close on both of his arms, and a deep, gravelly voice said "Come with us, sir." Jacob thrashed in the iron grip, but the two big Guardsmen dragged him struggling out the door, and it slammed shut in his face.

_Ow._ Jacob spat blood, tasting the coppery tang of it mixed with the bitter taste of concrete. Picking himself up from the ground, he turned in time to see the front door of the Special Handling building slide down into place with a hiss and a thud, sealing off the one passage between him and Jessica. Leaping to his feet, he charged forward and slammed his shoulder into the door in a full-body tackle, roaring a string of obscenities. Staggering backwards and cradling his aching shoulder, he glared up at the imposing building, sucking his split lip. _Well. I guess the 'list' is going to have to wait. I have a higher priority now._

Jacob still managed to make it back to the park bench that he'd vacated earlier before the appointed time for his and Wraith's rendezvous, and slumped down on the wood seat. It was all he could do to keep from screaming, and he had the strongest urge to break things, to rend and tear with his bare hands. Flexing his fingers in his lap, he glared straight ahead at nothing in particular, and remained that way until Wraith slid onto the bench next to him. Glancing over at his companion, the government operative tentatively said "So… did it not go well?" Jacob grunted an affirmative, then after a pause said "Wraith… you should know something. Back before all this shit started, I had a girlfriend. Her name was Jessica. I'd known her since even before I enrolled in the army, and we would go out for a movie or three every time I came home on leave. The last time I heard from her was the day the infection hit. She left a message on my answering machine, telling me that her dad – yeah, she still lived with her parents, don't judge her – had come down with something and the house had been quarantined by her mother." Wraith hissed in his breath, grimacing. He could see where this was going. "I went over to John McArthur and asked about her, to see if she'd gotten out okay. He said there was a woman who matched her description being moved to the 'Special Handling building.' So I went there, and after a… _blunt_ exchange with the woman at the door, I was allowed to see her." He broke off here, and after a long, awkward pause, Wraith said "And?" Jacob took a deep breath, and said "She's a Witch."

Wraith leaned back in the bench, and ran a hand through his short mess of curls. After an even longer pause, he said awkwardly "Oh." Jacob's fists were clenched so tightly that his nails drew blood from his palms, and he growled "And that's not the worst of it. She's still _her_, Wraith. I know it. I _saw_ her. She knew me, she even _talked_, for God's sake! She's still the same Jessica, and they have her strapped to a chair, full of tubes, hit with electric shocks every time she tries to get up!" Jacob was in full rant now, and he launched up from the bench, standing with his back to Wraith, hands stuffed in his pockets, trembling. Wraith got up to stand next to him, and placed an awkward hand on his shoulder. It was then that he realized that Jacob – Jacob of all people, that indestructible, unflappable warrior who had waded through hordes of infected with an axe in his hand and a smile on his face, who had pushed onwards in the face of debilitating injuries, pushed onwards through sheer force of will until his very legs gave out beneath him – was crying. _Crying_, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs that wracked his entire body and occasionally came out in a pathetic, choking sound that was obviously foreign to the big man's throat. Wraith couldn't help but be moved by the sight. "Tell you what," he said, gripping Jacob's shoulder. "I've managed to bargain, bribe, plead and order my way into possession of quite a few weapons." Jacob's glance snapped around until he was staring directly into Wraith's eyes, his gaze so feral and excited that Wraith almost recoiled. He restrained the urge, however, and simply patted Jacob on the back, saying "Just like old times, huh?" Jacob reached up and grasped Wraith's hand, squeezing it in a grip like a vice. A wolf grin split his features, and he growled "Yeah. Let's get these bastards."


	10. Chapter 10: Breakout

Jacob strode up to the door of the Special Handling building once more, this time accompanied by Wraith, his trenchcoat swirling around his feet in the wind that had kicked up as night fell. Sliding a magazine into his SCAR-H assault rifle, Jacob nodded to Wraith, who walked up to the door. Slinging the messenger-bag-style pack off his shoulder, he set it down in front of the door and unzipped the top to reveal a long, metal cylinder with a simple set of four switches and a digital display on top. Flipping the first three switches one at a time, Wraith looked up at Jacob, who nodded grimly. "Do it," Jacob whispered, his voice as hard and cold as a knife blade. Wraith nodded back, flipped the switch, and they both ran for cover.

With a strident explosion that illuminated the camp in a flash of crimson fire, the metal door – and a good chunk of the concrete wall surrounding it – were instantly vaporized as the bomb detonated, sending chunks of concrete and metal flying in all directions. Before the smoke had finished clearing, Jacob was there, wading out of the choking black cloud like a demon out of hell. The few security guards and technicians in the room balked at the sight of this newcomer striding from the searing cloud, the light of murder in his eyes, a feral grin on his face. The SCAR snapped up into firing position, and Jacob yelled "We are not here to kill you! Stand down and surrender your weapons or we _will_ kill you!" Two M16s trained in on him, and a powerful voice boomed "We!? Who the hell's 'we'!? There's only one of you!" After a pause, Wraith appeared, a blacker patch against the black smoke. Raising his sniper rifle, Wraith purred "I'm sorry, you were saying?" After a long, awkward pause, the guards relinquished their rifles, the weapons dropping from their hands to clatter onto the floor. Under the watchful muzzle of Jacob's SCAR, Wraith walked up and secured the guards' weapons, making sure to confiscate the handguns in holsters on the guards' hips as well. As Jacob walked past, he idly glanced at one of the guards, and stopped as if pole-axed as he took in the name on the man's dogtags: Captain Richard Johnson. Jacob's memory flashed back to a blood-stained kitchen in New Orleans, a soldier rocking back and forth like a terrified child behind the counter. _"Then Captain Johnson… he… he ordered us to fire… we killed every single one."_

With a roar, Jacob lunged forward, slamming the man against the wall with an arm across his chest. Johnson struggled against his antagonist, but Jacob's iron sinews, forged in the crucible of constant strife, held him fast. "What the hell!?" Wraith half-yelled, spinning around. "Tell me, Captain Johnson," Jacob growled in the soldier's face. "Did you ever stop and think about the lives of the civilians? You know, the ones you murdered to stop them from getting into New Orleans?" "We… couldn't break the quarantine line…" Captain Johnson managed to get out with difficulty as Jacob mercilessly crushed him against the wall. "If we did… the population would have been infected…" "Jacob!" Wraith said, coming up behind his companion. "He's right! Let the poor man go, for Christ's sake!" Jacob ignored Wraith, growling "Those people _weren't infected._ I know: I checked the bodies! They showed _no symptoms. At all._" Captain Johnson's eyes widened as Jacob's fingers closed around the handle of the pistol at his hip, and Wraith put a hand on Jacob's shoulder. "Jacob," he said, very quietly and calmly. "Think about this. This man acted in the best way he thought he could under the circumstances – which, to be fair, were pretty stressful. He did what he thought was his duty as a soldier. Are you really going to kill someone for that?" Jacob seethed for a moment, Captain Johnson wriggling in his grip, then let go reluctantly, letting his fingers slide off of his pistol. Johnson slumped down, gulping in air. Turning away, Jacob snatched up his assault rifle from where he'd dropped it, and growled "Let's go."

After a long, arduous, winding journey, during which both Jacob and Wraith became thoroughly lost, they finally stumbled upon the correct door. Jacob recognized it by the number beside it: 117-A. Walking forward, he cursed as he remembered the need for a keycard to get in. "Should have brought more explosives," he growled, and gave the door a savage kick. "Here, let me," Wraith said, and walked up, whipping a screwdriver from his pocket and deftly removing the cover from the keycard slot to reveal a mess of wires. Removing a set of wire cutters from another pocket, he spent a few minutes tinkering, then triumphantly said "Got it!" and stood up as the door slid open. "Where the hell did you learn how to do _that?_" Jacob said, staring aghast at the mutilated machinery. Dusting himself off and returning the wire cutters and screwdriver to their proper places, Wraith chuckled and said "Maybe some other time." Shrugging, Jacob stepped forward into the stygian darkness of the unlit chamber.

Walking further into the darkened room, Jacob switched on the flashlight that had been strapped onto the front of his rifle, shining the beam of light about until it came to rest on the chair, and the pathetic, limp figure residing therein. Her eyes blinked open as the light came to rest on her, and she recoiled from the light, mouth open in a silent hiss. It was then that Jacob remembered that witches hated flashlights. "Sorry," Jacob mouthed, hurriedly moving the light away. Turning to his companion, Jacob said "So, how are we gonna break through this?" "The old-fashioned way," Wraith said, and motioned to a thick pipe running up the wall. Understanding dawned on Jacob, and he walked over, letting the SCAR drop to the ground. Grabbing the pipe firmly with both hands, Jacob braced his feet against the wall and pulled as hard as he could. The pipe resisted, and Jacob strained with all his might, the muscles bulging outwards on his bare arms as he tugged. At last, the pipe came free, and Jacob stumbled backwards as the resistance to the tremendous force he was exerting was suddenly removed. Walking over to the Plexiglas screen, Jacob swung the pipe in the manner of a baseball player, slamming it with all his might into the barrier, which cracked under the blow.

Two more hits shattered a section of the Plexiglas, and Jacob leaped through the whole, discarding the pipe and rushing to Jessica's side. Enfolding her in a nearly crushing embrace, Jacob murmured "I'm here, Jess… I'm here now," stroking back a lock of her hair. Stepping through more sedately, Wraith scanned the room behind them for any pursuers, and, satisfied that none were there, moved to help Jacob free Jessica. With Wraith's surgical precision and knack with machines, they soon had the young woman up and out of the chair, all the tubes and wires disconnected from her slim frame. "Can you walk?" Jacob said, his arm protectively around Jessica's shoulders. Jessica scrunched her brow in consternation, puzzling out the words, then nodded and started forward. However, she hadn't taken more than three steps when she stumbled, and would have fallen had Jacob not caught her in his powerful arms, supporting her trembling body as her legs gave out. "Apparently not," Wraith muttered, and Jacob scooped Jessica into his arms, holding her bridal-style and looking down at her with undisguised love written on his features. Wraith raised a sardonic eyebrow at the expression, having never seen it before on the feral countenance of the warrior he'd come to know during their time battling through the apocalypse.

Jessica looked up, and her blood-red eyes met Jacob's. Her expression softened, and she reached up a claw, tenderly tracing a line down Jacob's cheek. Her mouth worked, and she seemed to be trying to form words, but nothing came out and after several seconds she gave up, and contented herself with resting her head against Jacob's chest. "I hate to break up this little reunion," Wraith said, standing by the door, "but we've got company."

"Ah, shit," Jacob muttered, ducking through the hole in the Plexiglas, his precious cargo held close to his chest. "Can you fight?" Wraith said, as the sound of running boots drew closer. Jacob glanced down at Jessica, who was cuddled against him with her eyes squeezed shut, and said "Er… not unless I have to." Wraith grunted, then stepped out into the corridor, motioning for Jacob to follow him. The big man did so, jogging after his companion, who he could barely make out in the gloom ahead of him. A shout rang out behind them, and gunfire burst to life in the corridor. Jessica flinched every time a bullet ricocheted off a nearby wall, and Jacob set his jaw, putting on a burst of speed to catch up with the long-legged Wraith. Half-turning, Wraith starting firing as he ran, shooting blindly into the dark corridor in the direction of the gunshots. Then one of their pursuer's bullets found its mark, and Jacob stumbled as the projectile blasted through his side, gritting his teeth against the pain. Jessica glanced down at the wound and made a worried little cry, looking back up at Jacob with worry etched on her features. "I'm fine, Jess," Jacob managed to get out through gritted teeth, and pressed onwards.


	11. Chapter 11: Firing Squad

"Hold on, Jacob! We're almost to the helicopter!" _Helicopter?_ Jacob thought idly as he ran, legs pumping, Jessica hugged to his chest. _Where the hell did Wraith get a helicopter?_ The wound in his side stabbed a jagged shard of pain into him every time to took a step with his right foot, but he grimly ignored it. This time, he was fighting for more than just himself.

Their pursuers had all either been killed or had taken cover, and no bullets flew around the fleeing trio as they burst out of the building, running across the asphalt towards the sleek helicopter that crouched out in the open, behind the big building and away from the rest of the camp. The blades whirred to life as Wraith and Jacob neared, and the pair clambered up with difficulty, Jacob reaching up to set Jessica safely in the passenger bay before clambering up himself. The pilot, a man of medium height with a thin layer of brown hair and a well-groomed mustache, turned to look and practically jumped out of his seat, fumbling for the pistol at his hip. "What the _hell_¸ Wraith? You didn't say you were bringing a _Witch_ on board!" Jacob got in between the pilot and Jessica, arms folded over his chest, and growled "You want to get to her, you go through me." Wraith put a hand on the nervous man's shoulder, and said quietly "Just get us out of here. I'll explain later." The pilot, still not looking entirely content with the situation, still lifted off, pulling away from the Special Handling building just as another squad of soldiers burst from the door and started shooting at the rapidly disappearing helicopter.

"Holy shit…" Jacob said, leaning back against the wall, Jessica crawling over to curl up beside him with her head in his lap. Looking up at Wraith, Jacob blew out a long, relieved breath, and said "We did it." After a long pause, Jacob held out a hand, and said "Thanks, Wraith." Taking the hand and squeezing, Wraith said "Any time, Jacob. Now let's get you patched up."

"So, I heard there's supposed to be more camps like _Hephaestus _out there," the pilot – who Wraith had introduced as Hank, an old compatriot from his "war days" – said, glancing back at Wraith, who was in the process of dabbing at Jacob's wound with a piece of cotton wool soaked in disinfectant. "So I hear," Wraith said, ignoring Jacob's occasional winces. "They're all over the country. One's even up in Ohio." "Ohio?" Jacob said, running an idle hand through the sleeping Jessica's hair. "I thought that place was full of zombies." "They apparently cleared out a 'safe zone', and are beginning re-colonization." Jacob grimaced, and said "Why did they think this was a good idea?" "Who knows?" Wraith said, then paused and added "And this one in Ohio… I hear it's run by CEDA."

Jacob's gaze locked with Wraith's, and there was silence for several long moments. Then Jacob growled "Who the hell thought it was smart to put _those_ bungling assholes in charge of a camp _in the middle of zombie country!?_" Wraith shook his head, and muttered "Imbeciles." "Uh, guys?" Hank said, voice trembling with nervousness verging on panic. "What now?" Wraith said, standing up and walking into the cabin. There was a long pause, then Wraith said "Jacob… you might want to see this." Giving Jessica's hair one last stroke and whispering "I'll be right back," Jacob gingerly stood up, stretched, and walked to stand beside Wraith. "What's the problem-…" Jacob's words died in his throat as he stepped up to the window and looked out.

They were flying over a gentle rise in the ground, surrounded on all sides by chain-link fence topped with razorwire. A freestanding concrete wall stood in the middle of the grassy hillock, and before it stood a row of people: men, women and children, dressed in everyday clothes, their hands bound behind their backs. Standing a good ways in front of them was a row of soldiers in desert-colored fatigues and body armor, holding M16 assault rifles. Jacob's blood ran cold as he immediately recognized the situation: a firing squad.

Jacob could just barely make out someone's voice over the loudspeakers mounted around the camp, a hard, cold female voice that seemed as emotionless as one of the legions of infected that Jacob had slaughtered. "All US Army personnel are to report to General Hoffman for re-deployment. New orders are to purge camp _Hephaestus _of any infection threat, namely un-immunes." "Shit," Jacob growled, fists balling at his side as the message began to repeat. "This is _not_ happening." Turning, he grabbed the back of Hank's chair, and snarled "Land this thing. I'm saving those people." "What!?" Hank said, looking back at Jacob with incredulity written on his face. "That's tantamount to suicide! In case you hadn't noticed, there's ten soldiers with assault rifles down there!" "Hank," Wraith said, and both Hank and Jacob turned to see the government operative opening a compartment in the back of the plane. "We've faced worse. Land the helicopter." Turning, he tossed something in Jacob's direction. Catching it, Jacob sucked in his breath as he recognized the battle-scarred, bloodstained fire axe that had taken him through hell. "Where did you find this?" Jacob said, caressing the nicked wooden haft. With a coy grin, Wraith said "I'm in the government, remember? I have powers." Grinning back, Jacob slapped his companion on the shoulder, and said "Okay, let's do this."

Sergeant First Class Nathan Harper stood in the middle of the line his squad had formed, staring down the barrel of a trembling assault rifle at the people lined up against the wall. He was a hardened veteran of five years of warfare, but shooting unarmed civilians – and fellow Americans even – was not something he was particularly fond of. Especially after most of the country had been killed in the horrific plague known as the Green Flu, it seemed somehow wrong to further reduce the numbers of Americans alive in the country. But orders were orders, and Nathan had to admit there was some logic behind these executions: the last thing he wanted was for an outbreak of the Green Flu in Camp _Hephaestus_. Flipping his weapon's safety off, Nathan yelled "Squad, aim!" Nine rifles snapped up into position, and Nathan swallowed, opening his mouth to shout the final, deadly command. The order never left his mouth, however, as the thrum of a helicopter flying overhead grew suddenly louder, and the chattering roar of a heavy machine gun added to the cacophony.

"_Suck on this!_" Jacob roared, the XM312 HMG bucking in his grip as it pumped out a steady stream of high-caliber ammunition, a strident lance of flame jutting out from the barrel as the weapon roared. His heavy boots were braced against the floor, the muscles in his arms bulging and standing out as he strained against the jarring recoil. Jessica lay on the floor, curled into a ball with her hands over her ears. Wraith knelt on the other side of the passenger bay, sniper rifle held at the ready. Jacob watched as the soldiers scattered, and a feral grin split his features as he released the trigger, feeling the big weapon relax in his grip. Dropping the HMG, he unsheathed the axe on his back and took a running leap out of the helicopter.

The elastic cord securing him to the vehicle grew taut as he neared the ground, and just before it tugged him back up he unhooked the clasp linking the cord to his newly-acquired Flak vest, dropping the remaining ten feet to the ground and rolling as he landed to absorb the impact. Standing up, he brought the axe up and delivered a crushing blow with its pommel to the face of a nearby soldier, who was just standing up from his cower. Grabbing the soldier's rifle with his free hand as he fell backwards, and training the weapon on the other soldiers. Snapping off three quick shots, he hit one in the leg, sending him back to the ground with a cry of pain, hit another in the arm, sending his rifle dropping from spasming fingers, and hit a third in the thigh, causing him to collapse. Grabbing the soldier next to him before he hit the ground, Jacob swung him around with an arm on his chest, placing himself behind the soldier and using the unfortunate man as a human shield. Resting the purloined assault rifle on the groaning soldier's shoulder, Jacob yelled "Everyone stand down, unless you want me to shoot those of you lucky enough to lack a bullet wound!"

Nathan gritted his teeth against the pain in his leg, pressing his hands to the bleeding wound and staring at their assailant. The big man was standing behind Private Hayes, a muscle-bound arm around the smaller man's chest. His long, dark hair partially obscured his eyes, but Nathan saw a feral glint in the steely orbs, a fire straight from hell that sent shivers up his spine. This was a man who was clearly ready, willing and able to kill, and Nathan did not want his soldiers dying for a cause such as this. "Stand down!" he managed to get out, and glanced down at the blood welling from between his fingers. "Stand down!" he repeated, and his soldiers grudgingly lowered their weapons. Pushing the unfortunate Hayes away, the big man stalked over to the captives, going along the line and removing their restraints. Coming back after this task was done, he stood before the soldiers and growled "I'm going to need your weapons. Now." The soldier closest to him, the hot-headed Corporal Jenkins, raised his rifle, yelling "Go to hell!" Poor Jenkins didn't even see it coming. The newcomer slammed a fist into Jenkins's face, grabbing the assault rifle from fingers startled into placidity, twisting the gun around and driving its stock into the unfortunate soldier's gut. Doubling over, his breath whooshing out, Jenkins received a triphammer blow to the side of his head and went down, curling up and groaning. Turning his withering glare on the rest of the squad, the big man snarled "Anyone else want some?"


End file.
